Penguin
Footballguy
It's also possible it's not related to either. We'll be learning about this for years
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*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter Big League Chew
- Start date
Orange&Blue
Footballguy
you know what does cure covid? a lethal dose of anthrax. guaranteed to stop the spread.
this BS is allowed but the political forum is not? wake up, mods!
The Commish
Footballguy
Understood....I believe the claim is myocarditis though (disguised in the "I'm just asking questions" trope of BS)....that's not how myocarditis works. What's happening now in this thread is a terrible conflation of terms at best, a completely dishonest fake story at worst. Prior to COVID and the vaccines we had an estimated 6-7K cases like these every single year. That number hasn't changed in any meaningful way post covid/vaccines. One has to believe some pretty extreme things to ignore that. My best advice to everyone is when you see this sort of inaccuracy (like conflating damage done previously with an active condition), you clear it up and just move on.
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Setting aside all of the collapse discussion, I don't think it's correct to dismiss the myocarditis and covid vaccines as speculative. You can look at slides 26-29 on the CDC website here. In the seven days after dose 2, myocarditis/pericarditis reports in men 18-24 were 219 versus and expect "background" range of 1-8. If you're going to argue that this is a pure heightened awareness/reporting issue, you have to explain why for 18-24 women it was 23. I don't see how one can dismiss it as there being nothing there. I think the more persuasive argument against freaking out over it ties into Ivan's point, and that is that this is still a small effect, and there's evidence that getting Covid causes myocarditis and pericarditis as well, so the cost benefit for young men may still tip towards vaccination. But I think handwaving it away as a nothingburger flies in the face of the data, and is the type of thing that sows distrust in the public health apparatus.
Doug B
Footballguy
Can't speak for others, but I don't think the connection is speculative. I think the connection doesn't matter.
I look at the "myocarditis!!" takes as something like this: Imagine of you read a warning that COVID vaccinations caused "intramuscular hematoma and pyrexia". Zoinks! That sounds bad!
Then you read that the vaccinations cause bruising at the injection site and a fever. Whew -- much better!
Myocarditis is an ordinary reaction to a vigorous immune response. It comes, it goes -- and before COVID, it was practically never of note.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Lol, "vax injured"
The Commish
Footballguy
The link you provide points to slides that are reporting to VAERS which has ZERO to do with anything that was discussed prior to this post. As stated before we get 6-7K cases of myocarditis a year (on average). That was true well before COVID existed and is true now. NO ONE here has said myocarditis isn't a potential side effect. Of course it is. It's a potential side effect in well over 95% of other vaccines too. That's not new in any way. It occurs at roughly 50% of the time it occurs after one takes a flu shot.
In these two cases specifically, it's on the list as potential explanations, but it's well below at least a dozen other more probable/likely explanations.
LawFitz
Footballguy
Agreed. If you notice I keep leaving open the possibility that the spiking cardiac events are due to Long Covid. But I am being shouted down for also leaving open the possibility that the vax may be the or an additional culprit. Three different posters have now demanded the mods silence me just in the last two pages of this thread. Look at the guy just above denying that people can be vax injured. It's such attitudes which are preventing society from ferreting truth. For now. Time and Space have revealed so many uncomfortable Covid truths in other areas. Hopeful for the same here.
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LawFitz
Footballguy
This is not exactly true. Mild cases can and do self-resolve. Severe cases can and do cause permanent damage to heart tissue, which cannot regenerate. You seem to be way underestimating the potential harm. Here is the Cleveland Clinic's take: there is a 50% survival rate after 5 years (from what I hope and pray are severe cases and not all cases, though they don't specify severity when making that claim)...
Myocarditis: Symptoms and Causes
Myocarditis is inflammation of your heart muscle. This can be caused by viral infections or inflammatory conditions.
my.clevelandclinic.org
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LawFitz
Footballguy
Here is a Medscape article that adds the color I was looking for with respect to those scary Myocarditis survival rates posted above via the Cleveland Clinic. Thankfully, it does appear those figures apply to severe Myocarditis cases, in particular. Still something to be quite wary of, especially for cases of youth cardiac events like Bronny James, but adding important context to this conversation...
Myocarditis: Practice Essentials, Background, Etiology
Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the myocardium with a wide range of clinical presentations, from subtle to devastating. More specifically, it is described as
emedicine.medscape.com
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
I have to say I'm really confused by this, but I'll drop it as there's no point in a prolonged back and forth. There were several posts talking about the link between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis, so I provided a link to slides presented the ACIP meeting in 2021 to provide some numbers, particularly in young men as that's where all of the signal seems to reside. Also, you can say 6-7K cases a year, but the rate observed in the 1 week post 2nd dose would be a yearly rate of 10K+ just in men ages 18-24 alone, who are obviously only a small slice of the population. Also, the slide already has base rate on it, which the CDC apparently has at 1/20 or less of the observed rate. Maybe that's wrong, I certainly don't have any expertise in this matter, but if so take it up with the CDC. You seem to be arguing that these are not real cases or are caused by other vaccines at the same rate and we just don't usually pick them up, not sure which.
And just to spell it out, my post was in response to stuff from the previous pages about heart issues immediately after vaccination, not the people passing out discussion that followed. I fully agree that someone fainting 9 months after vaccination has zero to do with said vaccination.
The Commish
Footballguy
Please don't....I think it's important. The slide I am seeing is titled:
"Preliminary myocarditis/pericarditis reports to VAERS following dose 1 mRNACOVID-19 vaccination, Exp. vs. Obs. using 7-day risk window (data thru Jun 11, 2021)"
What those charts are tallying is the reports that have come to the VAERS system. Every single one of those reports has to then be verified and validated because any goof can go to VAERS and report an "incident". ALL those slides are doing is reporting what was reported to the VAERS system. That's it. We then need to know if they are made in good faith #1 and #2 we need to know if it was actually myocarditis.
What I quoted you in the 6-7K is actually verified and properly diagnosed cases using the same methods of collection they did pre and post-COVID. The reason this matters is because early on in this whole fiasco, there was a stretch where the accuracy of the claims made in VAERS was less than 1% meaning, for every 100 reports, less than 1 was actually what was claimed. The numbers we each provided sounded pretty similar on their face, but we have really no business in comparing them in any way.
ETA: And this confusion is precisely why I despise the way the CDC handled the messaging on this topic. It was abhorrent and grossly mismanaged IMO.
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
Okay, I think I understand your position now, which is that the VAERS data is a lot of noise and greatly exaggerating any sort of signal. Hence, it's an apples and oranges comparison that is being done in the slide deck.
While I'm open to that interpretation, the problem I have with it is the concentration of the signal in a very distinct group (i.e., young men). If it were just a bunch of spurious or minor unrelated events, wouldn't you expect to see all of the groupings elevated to a roughly similar extent? I think to get the result you see, you'd either have to have young males (or their parents) as being massively more likely to report than any other grouping, or have a more benign side effect (I don't know - faintness, chest pain?) be improperly lumped into the myocarditis category. In the latter scenario, that side effect would still have to be much more common in young males than anybody else. Both of those explanations seem quite unlikely to me, but maybe I am missing something?
The Commish
Footballguy
Doctors have observed through most of the incidents that there is a rise in certain age groups. When it comes to VAERS and the "anyone can put whatever they want into that system" dynamic, I'd expect those areas within the narrative to be elevated, ESPECIALLY when it's an age group where moms are potentially involved. I.E. "I heard that these heart issues occur after having gotten the vaccine in kids my boy's age group. My boy has a heart issue so I am going to report it as myocarditis because I hear that's going around". Anything goes in VAERS. More importantly, I
m likely just going to ignore VAERS like I have since I learned about it many years back and focus on the verified/valid paths to see increases show up there....so far, they haven't.
uwillbsoon
Footballguy
Someone smarter than me can correct me but all this talk of vaccine-caused myocarditis is comical.
I'll have to find the data, but I swear I read about something that is an order of magnitude more likely to lead to myocarditis than the vaccine.
A COVID infection.
So even at the relatively low rates that the current vaccines protect against infection, they're likely more effective at preventing myocarditis than not getting a vaccine, right?
So the folks talking about the scourge of myocarditis are pro-vaccine, I assume?
I'll have to find the data, but I swear I read about something that is an order of magnitude more likely to lead to myocarditis than the vaccine.
A COVID infection.
So even at the relatively low rates that the current vaccines protect against infection, they're likely more effective at preventing myocarditis than not getting a vaccine, right?
So the folks talking about the scourge of myocarditis are pro-vaccine, I assume?
Dr_Zaius
Footballguy
I considered that, but would you a priori expect the “nervous mom” factor to be 10X for boys than for girls? That doesn’t make sense to me. I do understand your point about the data set being less than ideal (to put it mildly), and I think I would agree with you if there wasn’t such a pronounced signal in the data. If it was something bizarre like increased rates for only young women and old men, or a general 2-3X increase across the board, I’d be right there with you. But for a 20X signal in a narrow age band of men, I just don’t see how you get there without some real effect. To be fair, maybe not myocarditis specifically, but some real signal is being picked up. It’s the statistical equivalent of a klaxon alarm. The p value is <.0001. Fortunately, while the statistical signal is large the effect is still small in the grand scheme of things, so I’m not arguing this is some Armageddon-style event, but seems to obviously merit follow-up by scientists. Which, maybe beyond the prying eyes of the public is happening. I hope so.
To try to illustrate my statistical point better, I’ll use a stupid analogy. Suppose I’m obsessed with Bill Belichick and I launch a Where’s Bill ap that lets anyone enter GPS coordinates of where they spot Bill. There’s absolutely no quality control here, so most likely I’ll get either a uniform random distribution across the whole US, or more likely a rough population density map as false positives accrue or trolls just enter their own location. Maybe there are a few random hot spots with a larger than normal amount of trolls. If instead I open it up and there’s a gigantic spot in Niagara Falls as well as a heavy line going across I-90 to Boston, it’s a reasonable conclusion that I may have just stumbled across Bill’s vacation, crappy data set aside.
I guess to this I’ll just answer that Covid was a huge deal with far reaching effects , so it’s natural for people to talk about things related to it. People still debate tactics at the battle of Gettysburg 150+ years later. And I don't disagree that apart from corner cases the vast majority of people have had a positive benefit from the vaccines. This can be true even if they have some drawbacks, and it shouldn't preclude discussion about those drawbacks.
Further, mRNA vaccines are a big technological innovation and probably the future of vaccines, and all of medicine is a huge cost-benefit analysis calculation. If there’s something with the dosing or timing that needs to be adjusted for a small portion of the population, that’s important information. X-Rays are a tremendous, established technology that have greatly improved life, but despite that we don't willy-nilly perform them on people because we understand that if you give someone 1,000 X-Rays you’re increasing their risk of cancer. Very few things in life are pure benefit and no cost.
My personal situation shouldn’t really be relevant, but because this issue has gotten so polarized, there’s always an undercurrent to these conversations of that sounds like filthy anti-vaxxer talk. I somewhat understand this, because people not interested in real discussion will often hide behind a “just asking questions” mask, but it’s still a shame. So I’ll just say for the record that I’m vaccinated and so is my whole family, so this isn’t some backdoor “just asking questions” schtick plan to spread doubt everywhere.
The Commish
Footballguy
I don't really "expect" anything from unverified VAERS data if I'm being completely honest. That's because there are ZERO restrictions on who can enter events on the system. It's a monumental task to go through all those and verify and validate them. Only then can we begin to use the data in any meaningful way. To the bold, this is a good point and something else to consider. During a time where there's a good amount of panic, there is also a heightened sense of awareness, so things that are shrugged off as a cold or a sore throat, or chest congestion under normal circumstances are now all getting reported. Again, this why the verification process is so terribly important if the "cases" are going to be used in any metric for comparison. To your analogy...I understand what you're saying exactly. What I will say is that your conclusion is a reasonable one. It would be one of many reasonable ones we could come up with for the circumstance. In effect, your stats gathering at this stage is much akin to beginning to narrow down a bunch of reasonable conclusions, but not much has been done on the "probable" front if anything at all.
At some point, one has to move past what VAERS reported and explain why there is little movement between that 6-7K number that is consistently reported for valid myocarditis diagnoses year in and year out.
uwillbsoon
Footballguy
So we agree: vaccines have likely reduced myocarditis. Right?
That's my frustration. People who bring up myocarditis fail to acknowledge (or in some cases understand) that viral infections cause it at a much higher rate than vaccines.
There are always going to be edge cases. That's unfortunate. But often we won't know what they are, especially during a pandemic.
And I haven't looked, but my guess is that young men who got a COVID infection were more likely to experience myocarditis. It likely mirrors the vaccine. I agree that should be studied, but it doesn't mean that because young men experience a higher rate of vaccine-induced myocarditis they should avoid a vaccine.
So even in that population it makes sense to vaccinate if fear of myocarditis is a concern.
So, I'm failing to see the point of people mentioning myocarditis in relation to vaccines without pointing out that the virus is much more likely to cause it, likely among all populations.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
Oh, I think you know the reasons behind this campaign. The amplification happens because "influencers" can use it to bolster their personal brands.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Once again, a clearly pro-vaccine poster simply mentions one documented side effect and gets conflated with anti-vax weirdos. You people are nuts.
uwillbsoon
Footballguy
I was responding to this:
Trying to add perspective to that, which I read as exactly what I said: people failing to understand the risk of viral induced myocarditis is higher than vaccine induced. The vaccine likely lowers your odds of myocarditis.
gianmarco
Footballguy
I see only one poster "conflating" a pro-vaccine poster with anti-vax weirdos. "You people are nuts" is plural.
Practice what you preach, perhaps.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Hospitalization on the rise?
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
And yet you quoted an entirely different poster, who was making and sane and reasonable point about the relative benefits and side effects of the vaccine. Try learning how the quote feature works next time.
Doug B
Footballguy
The CDC hospitalizations figures are dated about 2 weeks, but it's all we have: A little over 10% rise week-over-week at the national level, as of 7/15/2023. You can scroll down to the US map and click on your home county to get more local detail (it's easier if you magnify the browser view to 200% or so).
In the parishes around New Orleans inclusive, the hospitalization rates increased over 30% between 7/8 and 7/15. However, I believe the counts are still in the realm of small "don't worry about it" numbers.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
This isn’t remotely true.
uwillbsoon
Footballguy
Who quoted my first statement. So I quoted him and said we're in agreement. Because I think we are.
I apologize I didn't quote the original I was responding to in my first statement. Kind of thought it was clear, but I realize now I came in a bit late to the convo, so it probably wasn't. Which is why I quoted it later so you got the connection.
Posting semantics aside, we can agree you and I are also in agreement that I made sane and reasonable points about the vaccine being much better than the virus in regards to causing myocarditis, correct?
Battersbox
Footballguy
The bolded may be true if the vaccines worked as originally planned, but they do not. I mean, there is a cumulative effect here.
My personal example: my son was 15 when he was first vaxxed summer of 2021 with two doses. That very well could have caused myocarditis since he fits the profile of increased risk. Then, he subsequently got covid anyway several months later, which again put him at risk for a case of myocarditis.
Given how little risk he bears for negative outcomes from a covid infection, if I had to do it over again I would have eschewed the vaccine for him and allowed for a natural infection if/when it ever came (if the powers that be would have allowed for it. At the time, there was HEAVY pressure from his high school to show vaccine proof prior to school starting in August 2021.)
uwillbsoon
Footballguy
Maybe. Depends on on the vaccine efficacy and how much more likely you are to get myocarditis from the virus. Definitely needs more study.
I'm throwing unsubstantiated numbers out now, but I thought I read somewhere it was 2x to 7x more likely to get myocarditis from the virus. The current vaccines are something like 30-40% effective at preventing injection against current strains, right?
And I have no data to back this up, but my guess is that if the vaccine causes myocarditis, the virus before vaccination probably would too. It's more about specific immune responses than what's in the vaccine.
By the way, I have no problem with folks making that vaccination decision. If they see their risks of the vaccine causing issues as more likely than getting an infection (or have some other reason), that's fine. It's a personal calculation.
I more object to them positioning that the vaccine is the only thing causing myocarditis. Because that changes the calculus and frankly is wrong based on available data.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I think people should be able to say straightforwardly-true things like "The CDC acknowledges that the covid vaccines probably cause a small number of myocarditis cases" without having to worry about the local bed-wetters showing up demanding that you add a bunch of disclaimers. I didn't know this as recently as a few days ago, but it's apparently true. Don't like it? Take it up with nature.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
People can, and do, say things like that. When used to push conspiracy theories however those pesky "disclaimers" become pretty important IMO.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Bed wetters? Seriously?
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Well that is the problem, right? People take a snippet of information and then distribute it without context and change the meaning.
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uwillbsoon
Footballguy
Agree. People can say whatever they want. But if they say that, I think it's completely appropriate to say "Yes, and COVID is X times more likely to cause myocarditis based on recent data."
Not sure why they'd be bed wetters for saying that. It's another data point people should consider when making a decision, no?
Chadstroma
Footballguy
I just remember how life was supposed to 'never be the same'. Now, life is exactly the same with no difference and COVID seemingly has just gone away.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
I would agree save one huge thing - Covid moved a lot of white collar workers remote and a lot of us don’t really want to go back (but not because of Covid).
Chadstroma
Footballguy
I was thinking of more like daily life stuff but yea that is a good point.
The only other thing I can come up with is that wearing a mask in public is much more socially acceptable now like has been socially acceptable in Asian countries way before COVID.
Scoresman
Footballguy
One good thing from this whole mess. It took a pandemic to get society to realize commuting to an office to work is completely useless in so many cases. I will never do it again. If a company wants me in an office, the time spent on my commute is part of my 8 hour day here on out.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
Masks were never ubiquitous where I’m at and now you very rarely seen anyone wearing one save medical offices. I went to Mercedes Benz for an EPL double header Wednesday night and saw one spectator wearing one - 70k+ in the building.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Yea, but that one was one more than you would have seen pre-pandemic.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
I found that out before the pandemic and now.... no, thanks, I have no desire to go anywhere to work.
uwillbsoon
Footballguy
I do a lot less in-store shipping. Like grocery shopping or going to Target. Either instacart or curbside. So much time saved.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
I think that was the directiom things were going but much like remote working from.home, the pandemic supercharged it exposing people to it.
For us, we didn't do those stuff before. We did a lot this last year but that was because we had a lot of donated gift cards in places like Instacart when my wife was battling cancer. We burned through all of that so I don't really see is using it much now.
It certainly has more value to some than others. The time savings and convenience is off the chart. I don't mind making trips to grocery though as I like to bargain hunt but more so it often provides a break from the munchkins.
Dezbelief
Footballguy
Amen
LawFitz
Footballguy
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IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I don't think so. I haven't been following this sort of thing for quite a while, but I imagine this is a dynamic process that needs to reach an equilibrium of some sort. Up until now, we've been dealing with a bunch of evolving variants, and we rolled out vaccines, and people have developed quite a lot of natural immunity. My guess is that everything about this question is different today than what it was back in 2020.
No idea if there's any real science behind this, but I've been working under the assumption that our experience with SARS-CoV-2 will eventually be similar to that of other coronaviruses. We get infected with those over and over again, and immunity only lasts a couple of months or so. Intuitively I guess I'd expect something kind of similar from this one.
